Ibtisam Azem

Ibtisam Azem is a  novelist and journalist based in New York. She grew up in Taybeh, near Jaffa, the city from which her mother and maternal grandparents were internally displaced in 1948. She has published two novels in Arabic: The Sleep Thief (2011) and The Book of Disappearance (2014). The latter has been translated into numerous languages and was longlisted for the International Booker Prize 2025. Her first short story collection, City of Strangers, appeared in Arabic in 2025.